The End & The Beginning

So this is a long overdue post. 

A year has passed since the incredible experience since the trip to China, which can only be described as a mind-blowing. The scale of the country was simply breathtaking. The velocity of growth and progress unprecedented. The relationship between old world China and the 21st century surprising. 

Futuristic Shanghai.

Historical Beijing. 

Even after getting back from the trip and hearing about other international adventures that my cohort experienced, I was still glad to have chosen to experience this powerhouse of a country. I'm sure I'll return. 

So the remaining six months of the course was a blur. The last series of case packs were packed with fantastic content covering everything from Managing Strategic Innovation to Leadership. By this point our cohort know each other so well that group work happened more easily, we used each others strengths well and had a mostly wonderful approach to collaborating and learning. 

As Christmas drew near, the feeling of the end drawing near was bittersweet. Nothing felt so tempting as the thought of weekends without coursework, reconnecting with friends and family, and enjoying free time without the guilty shadow of to-do lists and unread books.

And finally, our 'First Flight' send-off was with us. A day to celebrate our collective achievements and the friendships born across the last two years. It was emotional, inspirational and uplifting to see the course draw to a close. I was moved to receive a course prize, which I'm sure many others were also deserving of. 

So all that was left to do was find a glass of champagne and dress up for our end of course ball - a glamorous affair that went on well into the small hours. Packed with dancing, bubbly and a lot of love, it was the perfect end to this two year journey.

Last words: The MBA was a life-changing experience in more ways than I could have imagined. If you're even remotely tempted to do one, just do it. You won't regret it.

A toast to my Cranfield MBA cohort. You rock.

Change of Gear

It's starting to come together.


We covered so much information and knowledge in Year 1 of the two year Cranfield EMBA course that I sometimes wondered how if it could possibly weave all of the foundation blocks together to make a coherent learning experience. I shouldn't have worried.


Our second year programme is built of a series of electives that allow everyone to focus more on areas of interest to them and pulls on learning from the first year to apply and grow our knowledge and skills further. I'm currently knee deep in modules focussed on Implementing Change, Entrepreneurship and Advanced Negotiation (my husband is particularly worried about the last one).  


It's still tough to balance time for the day job, course and life in general, but the electives rely on you to be more self-directed in your learning which suits my style and preferences for the most part. Writing up my PhD thesis was a solid three month boot camp in desk based research, and honing that discipline over a decade ago has stood me in good stead for this year.


I'm particularly excited about the International Business Experience (IBE) that's coming up. A stand-out feature of the Cranfield MBA is that all students undertake a trip to experience business, culture and life in a different country. After a tough choice of locations, I'm heading to China with over 25 of my cohort in June 2012. We'll be landing in Shanghai (and later travelling to Beijing) and throughout be meeting people from a range of industries and backgrounds, and immersing ourselves in the Chinese experience. In preparation for the trip we're preparing for our report subjects and the more I read, the more I'm looking forward to it. 


There's a saying that  once you've been to China you either get China Fear or China Fever. I'll put odds on that I come back with the latter.

One year over, another MBA year begins

It's not often I'd be up particularly bright and early on New Year's Day, but with exams kicking off in Thursday 5th January that was certainly the case for 2012. With exams for modules in Business Finance, Strategic Management, People Management and Macroeconomics there was a wide range of variety of content to get to grips with. I found it particulary interesting that so much of our Macroeconomics content is so visible in media headlines at the moment, which really helped keep both class discussions lively and (slightly) eased revision.

Barely an hour had passed after the last exam paper was closed and our entire cohort was bundled off on a coach heading north to the Peak District for a weekend of Organisational Behaviour & Personal/Professional Development. From rock climbing at the aptly named Windgather Rocks (see left) to orienteering and personal reflection, the programme was stretching all round. What was inspiring to me was how much people supported each other in a whole number of ways, from physical to emotional, and how much people pushed themselves to overcome challenges. And of course, there was time over evening dinner & drinks to get to know other people from a range of cultures and backgrounds much better. I've added the weekend to my list of course highlights and, as we returned to Cranfield yesterday to dive straight into a solid week of lectures, I felt it had been a breath of fresh air in more ways than one.

Flashback: Exams

It had been more than a decade since I'd walked into an examination hall, but seeing the long rows of numbered desks quickly awoke memories of BSc degree finals way back in 1996. On July 15th 2011 I joined my cohort at Cranfield to sit the first wave of MBA exams - armed with the obligatory calculator, Lucozade and (hopefully) some requisite knowledge.

Covering subjects from Accounting to Strategic Decision Science, Economics to Marketing, there was a fair volume of content to get to grips with before the examinations and, as always, the biggest challenge was finding the time to do this. I found weekday pre work coffee with several dozen old-fashioned hand drawn mind maps worked best for me (modernised slightly by reviewing them on my iPad), as did spot quizzes from my team at work on the bewildering array of financial ratios needing memorised. Time will tell if the mind maps worked well enough, with results due in the next month or so.

What was most different from sitting degree finals all those years ago is what happened at the end of the last exam at 12.30 on a gloriously sunny Monday. There was no afternoon picnic in the sunshine. No celebratory lunch at Cranfield's legendary pub, 'The Social'. Within the hour we were straight into a four day warehouse project management simulation knee deep in post its. Times have indeed changed....

Update 2013: The exams were fine. If you put the hours in with revision, you generally got the results out.

Top tip: get in the habit of writing by pen. Six hours of writing in one day is enough to make your arm fall off.

Sunday Papers

The evidence that the MBA is having impact is accumulating. I no longer ditch the business sections from the Sunday papers (although the sports section still hits the floor).

Take today for example. I'm just into the revision zone between the recently completed third residential MBA module and exams (five 2-3 hour degree 'final' style exams looming in mid-July). I'm on a long train journey from Scotland to London, and have spent the last couple of hours practising 'flexing budgets' in preparation for the inevitable exam question. I pick up a paper to relax, and find myself reading about revaluation of the yuan. And enjoying it.

 

It's not as if I actively avoided economics until now; it's just there wasn't much call for it during a neuroscience PhD. But I am really interested in how economic models could apply to the Third Sector. Clearly you handle profit differently if you are a firm compared to a not-for-profit organisation investing funds raised into good causes.

So I'm adding charity economics to my summer, post-exam reading list. If you have any good examples of books/papers/blogs on the subject I'd love to hear them.

Reading Reading Reading

One of the things I enjoy most about the course so far is the range of concepts and ideas that you come across. In turn this has led to a flurry of book purchases (Amazon, always) and a problem; when to read them.

From 'The Goal' to 'Right First Time' - course related texts are fast taking over my bedside table & desk at work. And when 'Introduction to Accounting' draws a few smirks from my colleagues I dazzle them with new found knowledge of shares & dividends. Well, almost.

Finding the time to read everything is my biggest challenge at the moment. Thankfully my EMBA work team have divided up the preparation for the third module in May, which is a huge burden shared. Between seven of us there's a managable amount to crack on with. Which is just as well as I'm really not sure I could persuade my better half that 'Applied Statistics' was good reading for our forthcoming holiday....

Spring & Week 2

In the weeks after the first week of my modular EMBA at Cranfield I've been experimenting with ways to 'find' extra study hours in days and weekends that don't consume all of my free time and energy. Following the sound advice from others who recently completed the course, I've tried a few different tactics. I've found the best rhythm for my life has been getting into the office especially early each week day to take advantage of the quiet work space with a good coffee and iPod to hand. 

So, with a little more preparation and knowing what to expect, coming back to Cranfield for week two is not half as daunting as the first week was. It's been great to see my team mates again - and sharing our experiences of balancing work/life/study over a glass of wine or two.

After arriving on Friday morning and two days of solid lectures covering everything from group accounts to economies of scale , we get a Sunday off lectures. We rewarded ourselves with a two hour morning trek around the impressive grounds of nearby Woburn Abbey (below), a hearty Sunday lunch and a decent pint of ale.  Although the rest of Sunday I've been immersed in report writing and presentation prep, even at midnight, the benefits of a hefty dose of fresh air and spring sunshine still linger.